


Captured by the Princess, Rescued by the Ranger

by bluewall7numbers



Category: Power Rangers
Genre: F/M, Friends to Lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2019-10-23
Packaged: 2020-11-26 09:01:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20927615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluewall7numbers/pseuds/bluewall7numbers
Summary: OC/OC, Light Non-Con, Healing, Friends become Lovers, this is my first time posting here please let me know if I'm missing something.A hero gets captured and psychologically tormented by an evil villain. A teammate comes to his aid. 2-3 parts.





	1. 1 - Capture

**Author's Note:**

> author's note: god my title sucks ass, anybody got a better one I'll take suggestions. This is the first story I've posted on this website, please be nice. Superhero teams like the rangers have always fascinated me, the fierce friend & relationships they seem to get into has always drawn me towards these types of groups in fiction, particularly with those romantic wrinkles. I liked making up these characters for this story, I think they're probably subconsciously based on Billy & Trini in the MMPR comics but I kind of switch the roles around. Don't know if I'll use these characters in any other stories but we'll see how it goes!

Dante Metzler began to wake. His vision started blurry, gray, making out only edgeless shapes and shadows. A dull pain rang through his head. He could feel cool air against his forearms. He couldn’t seem to think, he couldn’t remember what had happened to get him to sleep, let alone where he was. He shook his head and tried to rub his eyes, but the sting of cold metal impeded his wrists. What was happening? He kept trying to move his hands, move his legs, but he couldn’t. Then it hit him – he was cuffed. Suddenly, panic shot through his mind. The room came into full view all too quickly, with each detail hitting just as hard as the first. He sat on an old wooden chair; his ankles cuffed together, the chains linking them woven between the crossbars at its base. His wrists suffered a similar fate, cuffed together and slung behind the chairback. He struggled for a second, trying in any way to free himself, to move himself even, but it became clear that these were high-quality bindings.

Dante tried to get his bearings otherwise. He didn’t want to accept that he was trapped like this, but he couldn’t let it consume him. He surveyed the room around him – Some kind of cellar? The walls looked to be thick, made of concrete, the floors as well. There were no windows to speak of, and the only lighting came from a few dim fluorescent overheads. It was cold – not so cold that it was unbearable, but he noticed it. The only visible exit he could notice was a metal door on the right of him.

But it was when he noticed the other contents of the room that his blood began to run cold. A metal table in front of him with what appeared to be instruments of sexual torture – He could make out a few whips, ropes, other assorted bindings like the ones around his wrists and ankles. The table had a closed drawer, too – what could be in there? His mind began to race, thinking of tasers, clubs, knives, things that could really hurt. And were they for him? That sort of thing had always confused him, even freaked him out. He could never fathom how one could develop romantic excitement from pain and torture. He would never want to hurt somebody he cared about even if it was a consensual act, and he certainly didn’t see the fun in being harmed like that. The idea of some stranger, some villain using those tools on him only increased the fear he felt. Whoever this room, these objects belonged to, he didn’t want them anywhere near him. Who could it be that put him here? And where could this be? He wracked his brain, trying hard to remember the events of the day, but everything seemed to be in a fog. He remembered waking up, leaving his apartment, going to class, and then...

Princess Delphina. She was standing in the park, setting up some sort of… he couldn’t remember, but she was up to no good. He tried to confront her, stop her, impede her from whatever evil she was about to cause. He was alone, he knew he was outmatched, but he had to do something. He wouldn’t be fulfilling his job as a ranger if he didn’t rouse up some bravery to take on that evil woman.

He looked down to his wrist to see his transformation bracelet still fastened, the blue crystal that bestowed him his powers still in place, glowing even in the oppressive shadows of the cellar. She hadn’t taken it from him, which was good, he thought. Not like he could put it to good use. Had he been able to power up? He couldn’t remember. Somehow she’d captured him, and she’d taken him here, and he was certain she had the worst of intentions in mind. Delphina wasn’t like the normal villains he and the other Crystal Force power rangers would face. Those others were villainous, sure, evil, absolutely, but in these kind of cartoonish ways. They’d create big monsters to wreak mischief out of common household objects, and they’d try to frighten citizens of the city of East Park, and they had their greedy and malicious goals in mind, but they reminded him of the villains he used to read about in comic books. Delphina didn’t. Delphina was something much more real.

She was like a school bully with superpowers. The type of woman who had no motive but just to be as cruel as possible. Whip-smart in all the worst ways, a skilled fighter, incredibly strong, and she had a sick sense of humor she’d deploy right when it would hurt the most. As a group of five, the rangers could take her. But she specialized in separating them out, maybe taking two or three of them at a time, and beating them into submission, destroying any chances they had of bringing her to justice and ridiculing them all the while. Fear shot through him. Everything was coming clear, and the situation wasn’t going to turn in Dante’s favor.

The door swung open from a powerful kick. In the threshold stood Delphina. She stood with a confidence that reminded him of a fashion model, and she resembled one just as much – piercing green eyes, lengthy brunette hair that seemed to shimmer even in the dim light, a sneer in her smile that reflected so much of the cruelty he knew ran through her. She wore tight tan pants, black boots, and a black leather jacket, looking like some kind of fascist military operative. She would be beautiful, he thought, if her actions weren’t so repulsive.

“I see you’ve woken from your nap, blue ranger.”

He didn’t respond to her. He didn’t want to show her any fear, and he wasn’t going to be able to conceal it if he started talking.

“What? Not going to greet me? You seemed to ready to spend time with me back at the park, what changed? Was it the, oh, I dunno, twenty or so blows I rained down on you before you could even get the chance to swing at me? Must have been that knockout punch I delivered right to your abdomen. You did get pretty quiet after that.”

The memories began to flood back into Dante’s mind.

“Shame, really. I didn’t even get to see you put on your armor! I love the dorky little poses you make, and I gotta admit, you look alright in the spandex, Dante.”

The idea of her thinking about him sexually made him feel sick.

She strutted towards him with a cockiness befitting a woman with the ability to fulfill any of her most evil desires. She put her middle and index fingers of her right hand under his chin and pushed his head up so her eyes and his could meet. “What’s the matter, boy? You’re awfully quiet. You rangers love bantering so much when you’re fighting… what’s changed, honey? What happened to all your courage and confidence?”

She started to lightly graze her fingers up his jawline, bringing herself closer. “Come on, boy… Show me some of that fight. Tell me I’m not gonna get away with this, justice is gonna be served. Come on!” She beckoned him like a dog.

Through a heavy throat he managed to stammer out “You won’t. My friends will come help me. You’ll be sorry…”

“Oh, very good! Very, very convincing, Dante. You’ve got me quaking in my boots.” She smirked through her mockery and laughed at his desperate attempt at defiance. “Think about that, though, Dante – Imagine the moment all of your friends break in, rough me up a little bit, then they turn to you. How humiliating! You just know your little allies are gonna see you, tied up, pathetic as ever, and just think, they’ll have to realize you’ve been the weak link in their team all along. When do you think it’ll hit them that you’re not fit to wear that bracelet on your wrist?”

A nerve deep within Dante had been struck. She’d picked out one of his deepest insecurities: He wasn’t good enough to be a ranger. He felt the emotions rush through him all at once. His bottom lip quivered, heat rushed up in his chest. He looked back towards the ground, desperate to hide what he knew was coming.

But she noticed. Sharply, she pulled his chin back up and saw the tears beginning to stream down his face. With an evil, cruel laugh, she withdrew her fingers and made him stew in the despair of the moment.

“This can’t be. This is too good!” she spoke out through vicious laughter, “The blue ranger! One of the guardians of East Park! A brave, courageous hero to all, brought to tears by a few little mean words?” she stepped back and put her hands on her hips, standing tall and confident over the broken 23 year-old in front of her. “This is gonna be fun, I can just feel it.”

‘Please stop…” he whispered, through sobs. “I’m begging you. Let me go, please.”

She laughed and stepped up next to him. “Reduced to begging? Already? Honey, it’s only been a few minutes. I just got started, I’m not gonna just quit now!” She turned away from him and pulled up a chair out off the wall behind him. She sat next to him, just close enough for her presence to put him on edge. She stroked her fingers through his soft, wavy strawberry blond hair. It pained him to feel that. How many nights had he yearned for somebody to touch him gently and lovingly like this, and how horrible it was to feel that touch coming from a woman who filled his body with fear and hatred.

“S-stop touching me…” he spat.

She did not oblige. She leaned in closer and started to speak in a soft, but biting, mocking tone of voice. “Look at you, look at you, blue ranger. You’re pretty cute, y’know that? Well, cute for a goody-goody ‘hero’ like yourself. Don’t think I’d ever go for you, personally, I like guys with a bit of a bad streak to them, I’m sure you can guess. You’re just too pure, too sweet for me.” She quietly rested her opposite hand on his thigh. “But that’s just me. You got a girlfriend or anything, honey?”

He didn’t respond.

She poked him in the ribs and asked again. “C’mon. Single? Taken? I wanna know!”

He shook his head and whispered “No.”

“Ha! I knew that. I just wanted to hear you say it. You know how I knew that?”

Again, he shook his head. He didn’t want to respond to her manipulations but he felt like he had no choice. Besides, if he kept quiet, she’d ridicule him for that, too. He couldn’t win.

“I mean, just look at you. You’ve got an energy to you, I can feel it. You’re cute, but in just the way that gets people to pity you rather than desire you. You’re kind, good at heart, all that bullshit, but in a way that’s just safe enough to let everybody else walk right the fuck over you. Who would want to date a little worm like that? Ladies want a man, and you, honey? You’re nothing more than a pathetic little bitch.”

He didn’t want to believe her. He knew she was only saying these things to humiliate him, she wasn’t truthful, and there was no way she could know it anyway, he knew all of those things. But right then, he felt like a pathetic little bitch. Maybe she was right. Maybe he wasn’t fit to be a hero, maybe he deserved to be lonely.”

“Shame, really.” She started to move her hand towards his crotch, agonizingly slowly. “”Cause with that body, and that face, and those pretty eyes… You’d probably get tons of girls fawning over you, if you were less of a fucking loser.” She took hold of his chin once again and gazed over his face, his eyes red from the tears. “Goodness, Dante, if only you could see how pathetic you look right now… Or, wait a second! I could just show you.” She snaked a hand into the front pocket of his pants and pulled out his phone. “Say cheese, hon!” She nestled herself up closely too him, flashed a sadistic smile, and took a humiliating photograph, framing her celebrating and him trying to avert himself from the camera’s view. “There, now you’ve got a keepsake to remember this moment forever. Send it to those other rangers, too, it’ll help them understand what happened here today.” She stuffed the phone back into his pocket.

He dreaded the moment when he escaped, assuming he would escape, when he’d have to see that image once again. If any of his fellow rangers saw it, they’d lose all respect for him. Not that they had much respect for him now to begin with, he thought. How could they respect someone who could get so thoroughly humiliated by a villain like her?

She draped an arm around his shoulder and pulled herself in closely to him. “About those other rangers… Do you know what they think about you?”

He tried to summon up courage within himself. “They’re my friends. They’ll come help me” Thinking of them actually made the anxiety subside a little.

“Oh, sure, sure they will. It’s only a matter of time. You are the power rangers, after all. But you and I both know what they_ really_ think of you, Dante.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well… think about it. Think really hard about it, from a strategic standpoint, I mean. Sure, loyalty to a friend might make them come for you, but say they didn’t come and rescue the blue ranger. Say there were only five rangers instead of six. Does anything really change? Does anything really become all that much different because the Crystal Force lost its weakest link? I mean, consider the idea that maybe, just maybe, they’re realizing right now how much better off they’d be if they didn’t need to come rescue some hapless little bitch.”

He shook his head. “They wouldn’t do that to me. We’re a team.”

“Sure, maybe they wouldn’t do that to you. I’m sure they pity you enough not to humiliate you like that after I’m done with your pathetic ass. But you, and I, and I’m sure all of them know it’s true. The rangers would be better off without you. Maybe that’s what you can do to help them out. Just give up on this. Take off your little bracelet, leave them be, go on being a burden somewhere else. Maybe that could _actually_ do some good for the city.”

Through gritted teeth he responded, trying to hold back more tears. “That’s not true! I am n-not a burden!” The ears began to run after he finished, though. That word - ‘Burden’ – it seemed to perfectly trigger his self-insecurities. He’d thought about it before, worried about it before, and he was starting to believe it with every passing barb from his tormentor. Maybe he was a burden to them. Maybe he wasn’t a hero at all.

“Oh, sure, they’ll tell you you’re an important part of the team when they’ve got you back together with them… But they know as well as you do. It happens, you fuck up, sometimes you build a superhero team with five valiant individuals and one, lonely, pathetic worm.” She wanted to twist the knife just a little bit more, and she intuited the perfect angle for that purpose. “Maybe that’s why you’re single. There are, what, three girls on your team? Probably hard to crush on a guy you’re routinely having to save from the clutches of some baddie any of them could’ve beaten without breaking a sweat.”

“Don’t bring them into this, please.” He could tell where she was leading. If she started asking questions about his teammates he probably couldn’t handle it, particularly when she got around to his feelings about the pink ranger - Amy Yoshida, a girl he found himself pining for at seemingly every venture, a crush he felt all too well was unrequited. Not that he’d ever had the courage to talk to her about it. “Please don’t bring my friends into this, if anything, please, leave this between you and I”

“Ohh, what’s wrong? Why don’t you wanna talk about it? Does it hit to close to home, maybe? I think you recognize that I’m right, and that must hurt just a little bit, doesn’t it? I mean, come on, Dante, tell me I’m wrong if I am, but I think I know what’s going on.”

She’d trapped him. He couldn’t keep his mouth shut, lest he prove her correct, and he knew he couldn’t convince her otherwise. It was the truth, he was powerless against it, he was a terrible liar to begin with. He gave it a shot, anyway.

“Y-you’re wrong.” It came out with a stutter and the clear sound of him trying to stifle sobs.

“Oh, come on, Dante! Try a little harder to lie to me than that!” She sneered at him, and laid a hand down on his inner thigh. “I already knew the answer, anyway, I’ve seen the way you look at that cute girl in the pink… What’s her name? Amy?”

Hearing Amy’s lovely name from Delphina’s evil tongue hurt him like a knife through his heart. He didn’t want to think of her. He didn’t want to think of how pathetic he’d look if she were to see him in this state.

“Tell me, Dante, does she know? Does she know you’ve got a thing for her?”

He shook his head. To his knowledge, she didn’t.

“I kinda figured. I was torn between two things – either you got rejected, or you’re too much of a coward to tell her yourself. It’s the second, right?”

He nodded back. His eyes slammed shut again as more tears leaked out and down his cheeks.

“Probably best to spare yourself the pain of making that nice girl tell you off, right? Wouldn’t that be horrible? A girl who’s so sweet, so heroic, such a model citizen, laughing at you for even thinking you might have a shot with her? God, I’d hate to experience it. I don’t know that I’d even wish that on you, honey. But anyway, tell me, what is it you like about her?”

He didn’t want to respond. He knew she’d just ridicule him… But he couldn’t hold himself back, he wouldn’t let Amy’s name go besmirched. “She’s...” he stopped to wrack his mind for something to say, something that wouldn’t make him sound like the pathetic bitch that Delphina had been making him feel like throughout his experience in this horrible place. He thought of Amy, how courageous and smart she was, and he thought of how she’d want to react in that situation.

“She’s exactly the opposite of you,” Dante spoke through gritted teeth, “Everything that I hate about you, every awful thing you do, every evil thing you are, she’s as far from you as anybody can be.”

Delphina raised an eyebrow – for seemingly the first time since their time together had begun, he’d not shown complete and total deference to her. She almost respected it. No matter, she thought. She thought it was time to turn up the heat, anyway. She slowly inched her palm up his thigh, closer and closer to his crotch. “Does she turn you on like I do, Dante?”

He recoiled at the question, and squirmed in his chair. Delphina appeared quite beautiful at first glance to him, but he lost any attraction towards her within minutes of interacting with her for the first time. He hated the idea of her trying to sexually gratify him in any way. As her hand made first contact with his manhood through his pants, there was an immediate reaction. He stiffened up at the mere touch. She lightly petted his bulge and smiled with a sickening sneer towards him.

He couldn’t control it, he didn’t want to react to her hands like that, but she seemed to touch him just the right way.

“I gotta admit, Dante… it’s bigger than I thought. Not _huge_, honey, I wouldn’t give you that yet, but it’s nice.”

Her comment made him recoil in disgust. The mere idea of this evil woman trying to sexually gratify him like this was the most disgusting thing he could possibly think of.

“Tell me, honey… Do you think about her?” she teased him through his pants. “When you touch yourself, I mean.”

“N-no!” he responded. A shudder waved through his body. To talk about him like that, to talk about her like that, he felt offended to his very core. But there was some truth to the question. He’d fantasized about her before, absolutely. Normally about simple romantic things he wanted to have with her – kissing, cuddling, softer things like that – but he knew he’d taken some sexual arousal from thinking about her before.

“Oh, sure you don’t, Dante. I can just see it now – you, maybe you’re in bed, maybe you’ve just come back home from spending time with her, and you can’t get her out of your head, and you just lose control of yourself for a bit… Happens to the best of us. Only difference is that most of us have the guts to actually act on those desires. You probably just masturbate, right? Then right after you do, you feel super guilty about it, right?”

He certainly felt guilty now.

“You know, Dante, I don’t get a lot of chances to date good guys like you. Most men in my circles are a little on the bad side. It’s a weakness, what can I say?” she began to roll her fingers up and down his bulge. “I don’t get to see modesty like this. Can’t think of the last time I felt up a guy who thought he needed to feel ashamed of sexuality like you.”

“Stop it…” he protested. He wanted to sound threatening but he came out so meek”

“Stop? Why would I want to stop?” She smiled with a devilish sneer, like the words themselves were pleasuring her. “I think I wanna do just the opposite.” she reached for his belt buckle and began to unfasten it.

Dante’s skin began to crawl. It couldn’t be happening. This evil woman couldn’t have brought him to this level of utter degradation. The words, the touches, everything before had been awful. But nothing would match the pure humiliation of getting sexual gratification from her. What if she made him finish?

She pulled the end of his belt through a loop with a sick show of satisfaction. “Do you want my hand? Or would you prefer my mouth?” she stuck out her tongue and laughed softly.

With a heavy clash, the room’s only door swung open.

Standing in the threshold was the Crystal Force Pink Ranger.

In a flash of magenta, she sprinted towards Delphina, dive-tackling her off of Dante. Without hesitation, she began to reign down with her fists while pinning Delphina to the floor with her legs. The forces of surprise, rage, and power from the glowing crystal in her chest helped her take the upper hand on the villainess, and she wanted to punish her comrade’s tormenter with everything she could.

While Delphina was powerful, she couldn’t compose herself to summon the power to fight back, she’d been so shocked by the ranger’s arrival. She continued to take punch after punch into her torso until she finally focused enough to shove her away.

While the pink ranger stumbled off, Delphina struggled back to her feet. The pink ranger unholstered a laser gun from off of her belt and pointed it right at her comrade’s tormentor.

“You get the fuck away from him right now. I don’t care where it is you get off to, but you have two choices. Either you leave and run back to whatever lair you and your other sick pervert friends hang out in, or you stay here and your little princess ass gets to feel what real pain is like from the hands of a pissed-off superhero. I’d choose the first option if I were you.”

Delphina hesitated for a second and tried to regain her thoughts. Before she could, the pink ranger fired a shot right at her feet, causing her to stumble onto her back.

“Alright, bitch, your choice.” Amy stomped towards the crumpled Delphina.

Before she could put down a single step, Delphina raised her hands in front of her face in surrender and spoke up “Alright! Alright! I’ll go, I’ll go, I’ll go.” She produced a device from her pocket, tapped through a couple of menus, and readied herself to teleport away. Before she did, she looked at Dante, still shackled to the chair.

“Looks like dreamgirl came through just in the nick of time. See you around, Dante! We’ll play again someday soon.” With that, a bright light surrounded her and she disappeared out of the room.

Amy turned towards her teammate, her body language completely shifting from righteous fury to sympathy. “Oh, Dante!” she knelt down next to him and grabbed a hold of the cuffs binding his wrists. “I’ll get you out of this, out of here. I’m so sorry you had to go through all this.” She grabbed a hold of each cuff and tore it apart like paper, repeating with the two around his ankles. Once he was fully freed, she gently took his hands in hers and helped him to his feet.

“A-Amy…” he struggled to find the words for the moment. This was exactly what he needed, but the worst possible way it could have happened. How conflicting for his savior to be the one he’d feared seeing him in that state the most. There was no way she could respect him having seen him in that state, looking upon him in that moment with his eyes reddened from tears and his spirit completely broken. He settled for “Thank you.”

“There’s no need to thank me, Dante” she implored him, “When I figured out what was going on, I knew what I needed to do. I didn’t need to think twice. For you, I’d do this in a heartbeat, no question.”

“How’d you figure out what was happening? Where are the others?” He had a host of questions but didn’t want to bog her down. Having to be rescued was already a burden enough, he felt.

“I’m, um… I’m the only one who knows.” She took hold of his left wrist and examined the bracelet attached. “Your cuffs… they must have been rubbing up against your bracer, they must have accidentally set your communicator to directly call me. It took a little while but I was able to triangulate your location and teleport here as soon as I could. That’s why it took me so long, I’m so sorry, Dante. I promise that I came as quickly as possible. I didn’t want to hear those awful, evil things that Delphina said.”

“You… you heard?” His heart shattered. Could this get any worse? The one girl he felt such intense longing for had heard him get systematically emasculated by a villain.

“Yes…” she put her hands on his shoulders and looked into his eyes through the mask of her power armor. “I did, and I need to talk with you about those things, and I don’t want to do it here. This place gives me the creeps, and I’m sure you want to get out of here. Let’s teleport out. I know we should probably return to the command center, but I would honestly rather speak with you person-to-person privately first before seeing everyone else, do you agree?”

He nodded. It made sense. He was barely ready to face Amy, let alone the other rangers.

“Okay.” She tapped at her wrist, initiating the teleportation sequence. “Let’s do my apartment, is that alright with you?”

He nodded again.

She grabbed a hold of his hand and the two of them became surrounded by angelic pink light.


	2. Chapter 2

As the light faded around them, Dante and Amy situated themselves inside the modest studio apartment Amy had been renting ever since the beginning of Junior year of college, right around the time that they first became rangers. Dante had vague memories of spending time here with the rest of the team as they began to come together as a group.

Amy clasped her powerful hands to Dante’s shoulders.

“You’re safe here, Dante. I know that what happened back there with Delphina must have been terrifying, and it hurts me to know that you had to experience that. I know you’re riding with a lot of heavy emotions right now – hurt, anguish, pain, anxiety - and I want to know that you are safe here, whatever you need to get off your chest, whatever emotions you need to express, they will stay between you and I if you want them to.”   
He struggled to hold back tears. He felt as if he didn’t deserve the grace she showed him, especially knowing that she now knew the way he felt about her, but he appreciated it.

“Thanks, Amy…” The first tear escaped down the side of his face. “For everything, for saving me, for doing all of this, thank you. I… I don’t deserve this.” He could feel himself coming apart. “You didn’t have to do this for me.”

“Dante…” She let go of him for a moment. She removed her helmet, setting it down on a nearby table. He could hardly bear to look at her. She was so pretty with her long black hair tied in a ponytail, her soft brown eyes looking at him with sympathy, her soft lips quivering with emotion. She stepped towards him and gracefully pulled him into a hug. Almost immediately, he rested his face on her shoulder and began to sob. She held him tightly against her chest.

“You do not need to be strong right now, Dante. You’ve been through a lot, and you absolutely deserve to feel support and safety right now. You did not deserve what happened to you in there. Those things that she told you were lies, I heard them myself, and they were absolute lies about your character. She’s an emotional manipulator, and she twisted the things that make you a fantastic ranger, and a wonderful friend, and an incredible person into things she could hurt you with. You didn’t deserve to go through that.” He could feel her voice trembling, struggling to contain the mix of sadness and anger running through her. She wanted to be comforting and calm for someone she cared for deeply, but the way that woman had treated him left her furious. “The pink crystal which gives me my powers…” she started to softly explain, “It gives me the ability to heal. The pink energy that runs through me is going to radiate through my armor into you. I want you to feel it run through you, let it help you to heal after what you’ve been through. I want you to feel it mend the cracks caused by the awful, evil things you’ve been internalizing, and I want that energy to guide you towards the light of truth, and care, and love that I’m giving you right now.”

He could feel it. The feelings of emptiness and loneliness underlying everything had begun to dissipate. He still hurt, but he didn’t question whether he had an ally, whether anyone truly cared about him. The embrace felt sweet, good, pure, all things he appreciated from her and all things that Delphina had tried to manipulate into weapons against him. Her strong arms held him tightly to her torso; serving as the strength he couldn’t feel himself in the moment. Despite the power that flowed through her, she retained a soft gentleness that he desperately needed to feel from another. She loosened her hold on him and gradually let him stand back on his own. She looked into his eyes, reddened and swollen from the deep-seated anguish pouring out of him. She slid her hands into his and gently grasped them.

“Dante Metzler…” she could feel tears welling up in her eyes now too. “I am so sorry that this happened to you. I cursed myself, my communicator, all that, for every second I had to spend waiting for the chance to get to you. I hated, intensely, every single lie I heard that wretched villain tell you... I know you’ve internalized a lot of awful things… But I want to tell you that you are wrong, Dante. You said that ‘I didn’t have to do this for you’. And, honestly, Dante…” the emotions began to wave through her, overpowering her composure for a second. She couldn’t tell if it was anger or sadness, it didn’t matter. “You’re wrong about that. I had to do this for you. I could not have looked myself in a mirror, I couldn’t have looked you in the eyes, I couldn’t have even deemed to call myself a power ranger if I hadn’t come to help you, Dante. Before today, that woman scared the hell out of me. I would’ve never taken the chance to try to fight her one on one. I wouldn’t have had the bravery… But when I heard that whole awful ordeal happening, nobody in the world could have stopped me from coming to find you. Nobody deserves what happened to you, Dante. But you, especially, didn’t.”

She felt more emotions welling up in her, ready to break out. “I’m… oh, gosh, I’m sorry, Dante…” she let go of his hands. “I can’t let this go on without telling you what I need to tell you, and… I’m just, it’s gonna take a little bit, I just need to power down, okay?”

He nodded. She stepped away and tapped at a button on her wrist. In a flash of pink light, the heroine who had stood before him was replaced by the darling girl he’d fawned over for so long. She wore a white jacket over a pink tee-shirt with black denim jeans. Her sheer black hair fell down over her shoulders. Instantly, the emotional disposition she carried as a ranger had shifted, down from the confident superheroine to the confused college kid she felt that she really was. “I’ve got something really important I need to talk with you about. I’ve been sitting on this for so long, hiding the truth to myself, and it’s time that you hear it, Dante. I’ve been too much of a coward for too long…” She sat down on the futon next to them and silently offered for him to join her. As he sat down, she made eye contact and tried to gather up the courage to speak up to him. 

Dante didn’t know what to expect, but his brain went to the worst place it could. Maybe she knew about how he felt? Maybe she was offended by him seeing their friendship like that… Maybe the way he’d reacted to Delphina’s words about her had hurt her. That was what scared him – losing her as a friend because he couldn’t keep his stupid mouth shut about her in front of that vile woman.

“Hey… Dante, before I tell you… I was just thinking, this might take a little bit, and I don’t know, can I get you some water? I just thought, like…” She quickly stood herself up and stepped away from him towards her sink. She silently cursed herself for buying herself this little bit of extra time because she wasn’t ready to confess. But she needed it. As she filled two glasses with water from her faucet, she tried to work up her courage. “You’re the fucking pink ranger, Yoshida.” she whispered under her breath “You can do this. You can do this. May the Crystals guide me…” she whispered to herself, a mantra from which the rangers would draw strength.  
He took a glass from her as she sat down. He hadn’t recognized how thirsty he was until she mentioned it, but he certainly appreciated the water now. He hadn’t recognized just how exhausted he’d felt either, not until the tension broke and it hit him how the intense emotion he’d been through had affected his body. But all of that stopped mattering as soon as he felt Amy lightly lay a hand down on one of his. He looked into her pretty brown eyes and saw the trepidation within her about to pour out.

“Okay, Dante... Here goes. “ She meekly smiled and drew in a deep breath. She could do this. She had to. “When I heard those things she said to you, it hurt. It was a shock, initially, to realize what was going on, then it was anger at her… then it was sadness in sympathy for you… and then, well… She brought me up… and immediately, I just felt this deep… deep sense of guilt.... Because when I was hearing all of that, the way that you took so much bravery and what you said about me when you fought back at her… Then when I thought of how much bravery it had taken you to step up and stop her from what she was doing in the park before you got into this whole mess… It just made me realize how much of a coward I’ve been… How I’ve been holding these feelings in for this boy who was being tormented, who could have drawn strength from me when he needed it, who needed to know he had someone truly by his side at that moment… It just made me realize how much I’ve been holding in, and for how long I’ve been holding it from you..."

“I’m in love with you, Dante.”

She held still for a moment as the words lingered.

Then the emotions buried deep within their cores propelled them together. Amy squeezed Dante’s hands as she leant up to him. He met her halfway. As their lips met, their shared nervousness and worry melted away. They held together for a few seconds, not wanting the kiss, the moment, to end. As Amy pulled away she felt herself beaming. And as she looked into his lovely blue eyes, the emotions rushed through her once again, this time in relief and joy. Tears began to fall again.  
“I didn’t think it was reciprocated, Dante…” she stopped and cherished the feeling of his hands woven in with hers. “And I wish I’d had the guts to say something before I heard it the way that I did… But I fell in love with you as soon as I met you. It started as this little crush, but day-by-day it felt like I’d fallen for you harder and harder until it was tearing me apart inside. I’ve just been so cowardly, so afraid of what you might say if you didn’t really feel it too, so afraid of how it might hurt our relationship as rangers and friends but, it’s been there…”

She ran her fingers through her hair, trying to distract herself from the intense nervousness “Gosh, I remember, it was like the night after we became rangers, I’d only known you for a week or so… I was so nervous and convinced that I couldn’t be a power ranger, like the Crystal Guardians had made some kind of mistake picking me, and I was ready to go back to the power chamber and tell them that I wasn’t fit to be a ranger, that I wasn’t worthy of the power they were to entrust me with… and by chance I ran into you, and I don’t know what it was but I just felt like I had to talk to you about it, and you convinced me that I had what it took. I remember you saying to me – ‘Maybe I’ve only known you for a week, but I’m ready to save the world with you. I can see it in you. The Guardians chose you. They don’t make mistakes.’ She wiped tears from her face as she felt more coming. “Then you were like, ‘As far as I’m concerned, Amy, you deserve this. You are the fucking pink ranger.’… and every time I feel like I can’t do something, I think to myself, ‘Amy, you are the fucking pink ranger!’ and I remember that you believed in me when I didn’t think anybody had any reason to, it gives me so much courage and strength.” She smiled through the tears at him. “I know it’s corny, but it was from that moment on I knew, Dante.”

“And I wish I had told you sooner. I wish you could have taken on that evil woman’s words with the confidence in your heart that you had someone out there who knew just how incredible, how truly valuable you are, and would do anything to fight for you, Dante. That’s what had me feeling so guilty, just knowing that you needed somebody in your corner to dispel whatever lies she was telling you, and knowing that that somebody would have been me if I’d just overcome my cowardice.”

Just as she finished, she felt Dante grab her hands and pull himself in close. “Amy…” He searched through himself to find the right words. “I… understand what you mean… I’d been too afraid to speak up to you about this too, but it doesn’t matter now. If you feel that way about me, then that’s all that matters.” 

“Look, I’ve…” his mind was moving so quickly that he could barely think of what to say next. This needed to be perfect, he thought, but the words and feelings built up over the time he’d spent with her kept flashing through his brain that he couldn’t pick where to start. Anxiety started to overcome him, his eyes began to dart around in panic, until they met hers again… And when looking into her pretty, loving brown eyes, everything seemed to stand still again. Without thinking, he started to speak,

“I’ve played this moment over again and again in my mind for months… Practically since I met you, and I wish I could remember what I said in all those fantasies because I don’t think I’m going to be able to get it out perfect right now, and… honestly, it doesn’t matter, what matters is that I love you, too… I’ve been in love with you for a long time, and… God, I wish I’d told you sooner, but it doesn’t matter anymore. I’m telling you now. I love you too, Amy. It started so small… It was just, like, even the first time that I met the Guardians, like, I noticed just how stunningly pretty the girl receiving the pink crystal was, and then once I got to talk to you, I noticed how charming and sweet and kind you were, and… like, it’s been every day since then, not one goes by where I wish I had the nerve to tell you how I felt. And, yes, truthfully, it was awful to be ridiculed about how I feel about you by Delphina. It hurt partially because that was something private, and I didn’t want her to bring you into it… But it also hurt because I hadn’t said anything, I’d been too fearful and she was mocking me for being a coward. It felt like my fault, if I’d just had a little more courage in the past, she wouldn’t have been able to draw upon that to hurt me.”

Amy pulled him in and tightly hugged him again. “Dante, you are not a coward!”

“You aren’t either, Amy.” He whispered back.

For a few moments, they simply held each other. The shared emotions were so intense, and so many, that each of them needed the strength of the other to stay grounded. All of the nervousness, excitement, joy, self-loathing, and all sorts of emotions bottled and shaken over months and months of friendship and rangerdom seemed to scream from within them. As they held on, feeling the breaths and heartbeats run through the other, those emotions began to coalesce. The fears became points of pride, signs of worries conquered. The joys became a rushing energy; the energy they realized had propelled them for so long. Everything seemed to wash away until everything became clear –

This was love. 

Everything that had happened in the past, the awful circumstances which prompted the confessions, the pain and frustration of the day… It ceased to matter. To Amy, all that mattered was Dante, and to Dante, all that mattered was Amy.


End file.
